


The Food of Dreams

by LookingForDroids



Category: Fallen London | Echo Bazaar
Genre: Character Study, Drabble Sequence, Other, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:34:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29361849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LookingForDroids/pseuds/LookingForDroids
Summary: The three facets of Furnace Ancona.
Relationships: Furnace Ancona/Player
Comments: 12
Kudos: 13
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	The Food of Dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [APgeeksout](https://archiveofourown.org/users/APgeeksout/gifts).



I.

She doesn’t fancy the dark, she says – not like you, with your smuggled gunpowder and relentless designs, driving your steel across the lightless ground to where good intentions always lead. 

You take a slow sip from a cup of the same bitter coffee she always declines in company, and say, with the softness of memory, that in your experience it’s either darkness or factory fires. You decided long ago which is preferable.

That isn’t what makes her trust you. You might walk among the workers, but to her, you’re just one more boss.

Still, that confession – it opens a door.

II. 

By the river, you find her, with mud on her boots, holding something spiraling and warm with amber.

“They’re only bones,” she says. “Fine enough, but we need something new.”

But there’s a wonder in her voice that doesn’t escape you, and a hunger for wonders, like a child browsing Bone Market stalls, imagining miracles and monsters long-vanished. You remember what it was like to be so weighed down by the dust of dreams. You’re not sure whether you envy her or not.

 _We,_ she’d said.

She hands you the impossible thing she found, and tells you, “Hang onto it.”

III.

The Magistracy: straight streets, orderly corners, the dusty weight of law. 

Furnace is restive. She watches the courthouse, muttering about those who don’t return; a tinny laugh echoes within her helmet, from the part of her that believes in the breaking of bonds. She’s angry – all of her, but her third face most of all.

You show her the other way in, to the still, deep pool, and tell her about the lamp-cats and the light. As you speak, something shifts within you. They make their own law down there.

She grips your hand. You watch the dark water together.

IV.

You’ve seen her faces now, each cast in different light. You’ve waited by her bedside, feeding her on her own dreams when you could have fed her on yours. The thought of that is repugnant to you. You’re not sure it always would have been.

As you rise to let her sleep, she hands you something silk-wrapped, which she unfolds with care: a single bite of crumbling nut cake.

“Here,” she says, pressing it into your palms. “Maybe you’ll understand.”

You close her hands over it. It’s precious, this scrap of self.

You hope, you say, that you already do.

V. 

You disembark at a tiny station serving a village situated halfway between London and Hell. To the west, there’s a church on a hill, which mostly runs itself these days; to the east, a factory throws strange fires skyward. But here, the cobbled streets are burnished by candlelight, and that figure, broad-shouldered despite the grey in her hair, that’s Furnace coming to greet you. She isn’t wearing her helmet – not here, in this place she built with two hands and three minds united. You always did like her triplicate smile.

The lights aren’t out yet. You can’t make yourself regret it.

VI.

And later – a lit lamp on a bedside table, beside a chunk of amber and three shining coins. She has already forgiven whatever there is to forgive between you. She still doesn’t fancy the dark. 

Outside, a train rolls by, familiar as a dream of thunder – no dead god’s legacy, but yours and hers. She pulls the covers over you both, and you kiss her once, twice, thrice, unseeing and unafraid to touch. Your hands and mingled breathing serve for conversation, and for every argument not to be continued now. 

There’s work to do tomorrow. You stay the night.


End file.
